As a new rainy season begins in the Sahel, myAgro is proud to announce another successful year of expansion in Senegal, which began with an enrollment of farmers in early 2019.
Expansion
myAgro’s geographic expansion in 2019 included two new districts in Eastern Senegal, Kaffrine and Mbake, and two new districts in the Casamance region of Southern Senegal, Bounkiling and Sedhiou. With the expansion to Casamance, this year marks the first that myAgro has offered programming in the area of Senegal south of the Gambia.
The opportunity to reach farmers in new districts was made possible by myAgro’s ongoing partnership with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and the organization’s wide network of savings groups in Senegal.
By linking the myAgro model directly to CRS savings groups, the impact of mobile layaway scales rapidly. myAgro’s presence in Casamance is particularly important for women farmers, which already constitute 60% of the farmers myAgro serves, because women in the region are underserved and struggle to produce sufficient harvests. Compared to Northern Senegal, an even greater proportion of farmers working with myAgro in Casamance are women.
myAgro puts months of preparation and research into each new area of expansion, and Casamance was no exception. The organization spent 2018 recruiting and training a strong team of field agents and managers, establishing field offices, performing baseline surveys, selecting 60 villages in which to operate, and testing new agricultural inputs to meet the specific needs of farmers in the region.
myAgro’s baseline survey in Casamance showed that most women there plant rice. With farmers at the center of myAgro’s design process, the agricultural team developed a novel package of rice and vegetable inputs that was specifically designed to meet their needs and preferences. Along with rice seeds and fertilizer, the rice package included okra seeds and fertilizer, which are major impact multipliers—tests in Mali have shown the combination can generate a 10x return on farmers investments.
Field agents speak with a group of women farmers in Casamance, Senegal during enrollment in early 2019.
Simplicity and Trust
Learning from past seasons, myAgro designed simplified marketing materials for the Casamamance field team that helped better communicate package prices to new farmers. This was especially useful for savings groups, who appreciated the simplicity of dividing the cost of a package among their 5 members, making it easier for groups to financially plan and spread out small payments over the course of a 20-week payment period.
A key factor to the success of entering a new program area is building trust within the community of potential clients there. The Casamance expansion showed that simplifying the way payment structures and package offerings are communicated increases the transparency of the myAgro model. This transparency builds strong, trustworthy ties between myAgro and new farmers, which results in more growth, both for our organization and for the farmers we’re proud to serve.
